by M. L. Briers
“Oh, go, be gone!” Claudia said, and she would have put some magic behind it, but she didn’t have the right ingredients for a banishing spell, and she doubted that magic alone was going to release the hold he had on this world.
“Not until you apologise,” Marsh said, looking downcast. “I didn’t deserve to die…”
“You were going to kill me…”
“I was trying to scare you to come back and work for me…”
“With you, not for you,” Claudia tossed back.
“I paid you a wage, a damn good one, so that’s for me.”
“I made you rich and famous and gave you a good life – ergo, poop off,” Claudia hissed.
“And now I’m dead,” he said and motioned down his grey body.
“Yes, your plan didn’t work out so well, did it?” Claudia pouted. “And again for the hard of hearing, not my fault,” she said and folded her arms, looking anywhere but at him.
“You’re a witch.”
“And?”
“The vampire is a friend of yours.”
“So?”
“So, ergo, your fault,” he replied.
Claudia took in a deep breath and held it while she tried to calm her jagged nerves. Maybe, if he’d only been trying to scare her, it was a little harsh, and she had told Neal that she wasn’t best pleased with him – as well as giving him the lecture on how she could look after herself. What was an apology going to cost her, and on the upside, it might get rid of him? “Well, fine. I’m sorry you’re dead.”
“Ha!” Marsh bit out. “Weak; pitifully so.”
Claudia snapped to attention and scowled at him. “Well, I was lying, I’m not sorry you’re dead, and I’m going to find the spell that will force you into the damn light – or maybe the other way, into the dark-hearted bowels of hell – who knows? It’s going to depend on how much you annoy me between now and then.” She shrugged. “But you’re not staying here.”
“You can’t do that. I can haunt you for the rest of your life…”
“I’m a witch; you’re a ghost, tell me – who’s going to come off better in this fight?” Claudia asked. Then she turned on her heels, stormed back out of the room, and used her magic to slam the door behind her.
Claudia sidestepped the door and used the wall to hold her up. Her heart was racing, her knees felt a little weak, and she tipped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to steady her heartbeat and take a ‘me’ break.
It wasn’t every day you ran into a ghost, and this was her first. She just needed a minute or two to get to grips with what she’d just seen.
“Boo!” Scott yelled, and Claudia almost jumped out of her skin.
With hindsight; she probably shouldn’t have zapped without looking, but in her defence, Casper the unfriendly ghost had just paid her an unwelcome visit. “Oh, geez, Scott!” she exclaimed while he rolled around on the floor at her feet, and looked like a fish out of water.
“What’d I do?” Scott grumbled, biting down on the red hot electric current that was still surging through his body.
“Claudia!” Marilyn yelled, rushing towards her son, and dropping to her knees beside him. She looked up with bewilderment at her best friend. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Nope, but I’ve gained a ghost!” Claudia replied, and Marilyn and Scott both stared at her.
“She’s lost her mind,” Scott said.
“I think so,” Marilyn agreed. “Bound to happen eventually.”
Claudia looked gobsmacked. “Seriously, I tell you I’m being haunted, and you tell me I’m crazy?”
“I can’t believe anyone would want to spend that much time with you once they’ve escaped through death,” Marilyn said with a sickly sweet smile.
“Oh,” Claudia nodded. “Is this about your clothes?”
“I would never stoop so low as to throw my clothes into something as serious as this,” Marilyn said like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but the wicked look in her eyes said otherwise.
“Fine, find a way to get rid of Casper, and I’ll give you your clothes back,” Claudia said.
“I think she means it,” Scott said, shaking off the last of Claudia’s magic. That had been one powerful zinger, and now he knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end when a witch really meant it.
“Then I think she’s got a deal,” Marilyn said with a victory smile.
Claudia was relieved. Having someone on her side was better than doing it alone, and then suspicion grew inside her. “You didn’t bring him back just to mess with me, right?” she asked.
“Him who?” Marilyn asked.
“Marsh Weathers…”
“The golf guy?” Marilyn screwed up her nose. “How’d he find his way back?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” Claudia said. “I presume it was sheer meanness of will.”
“Is he in there?” Scott asked, pushing up from the floor and walking to the door.
“Sure, go ahead, knock yourself out,” Claudia said before she turned to her friend. “Oh, Marilyn, I’ll need a new bedroom.”
“And once I get my clothes back, you can have one,” Marilyn informed her. She turned on her heels and started down the hall.
“Where are you going?” Claudia called.
“To consult the oracles,” Marilyn yelled back.
“Louann and Lottie,” Claudia said, nodding. “Why didn’t I think of that?” she asked scowling. “Hey, you,” she snapped at Scott, and he stopped with his hand on the door. “Don’t ever boo a witch over – a certain age – again,” she scolded him.
“I know your age, and if you want to call me baby-boo, then that’s how I’ll announce my presence,” he replied.
“Then prepare to be zapped on a regular basis,” she informed him.
Scott let out a long grunt of annoyance. “Fine, deal, done.”
“You have been, sucker,” she said, straightened her clothes and started down the hallway.
CHAPTER THREE
~
Neal spotted Marilyn the moment she opened the backdoor, and she spotted him a second or two after that. He noted that her shoulders tensed, her chin went up, and so did her eyebrows. He didn’t think any of that was a good sign, but then he didn’t care.
Marilyn had invited him into her home once, and he was damn sure that was going to happen again. He might not need an invite to get inside, but he had manners, and it was only polite to wait until he was asked.
Neal vampire speed served him well, and he was at her side a heartbeat later. Marilyn blinked at him twice in return. She’d been about to step down onto the patio, but his sudden proximity had taken her by surprise, and now her foot hovered over that first step as if there was a lava pit beneath it. “We meet again,” he said, oozing charm.
“Strange, considering I live here,” she offered back, her foot still hovering. “You, on the other hand…”
“Now, don’t be mean; it’s really no way to rekindle our…”
“Nothing,” she snapped.
Neal didn’t answer, he just tilted his head to one side and offered her one of those smiles – it said he was amused, and wanted to be playful, and that eventually he could wear her down, but that wasn’t going to happen. She was on a men-on-pause, and she aimed to keep to it that way. “Marilyn…”
“Don’t,” she warned him with a tone that sounded so motherly that she grimaced. “Whatever you foresee happening between us – rethink it.”
Marilyn took that first step and headed to her mother’s house, which was her summer house on the other side of the garden. Of course, dismissing him wasn’t that easy; he followed her anyway.
“Here’s the thing…”
“There is no thing,” Marilyn replied, cutting him off before he became Mr Persuasive.
Men-on-pause – she repeated to herself. A no-man-zone.
“I like to think there’s a thing,” Neal said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leathe
r jacket, and looking a little hopeful with his easy smile and his sexy eyes.
“Think again,” Marilyn said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to see my mother, and she has a vast hatred for you, and I don’t need her upset and not concentrating…”
“On what?”
“A spell…”
“For what?”
Marilyn stopped at her mother’s front door and turned to him. “Are you conducting an interview – is there a camera?”
“Nice sweatpants,” he said, and she snapped to attention.
“I was exercising,” she lied in a tone that told him not to go there.
“I don’t think so,” he said with a smirk. He leaned in and tapped his nose.
Marilyn reached up, put her palm over his face, and pushed him back. “Go away, Sniffy-MacSniff-face,” she bit out.
“But I do scent vanilla on your hands, smells good enough to lick…”
Marilyn snatched her hand back and huffed. She didn’t say another word as she opened the front door, stepped inside and slammed it behind her. That told Neal all he needed to know – he’d gone too far. Point made, he needed to back off, regroup, and try harder.
~
“And that’s how we levitate an object,” Lottie said, pleased as punch with Sandy’s progress at learning the basics of magic.
Sandy let go of the pebble with her mind and caught it in her hand as she grinned with triumph. “Thanks, it’s hard, but I think I’m getting it,” she said.
“If only everyone was as hard-working as you when it came to magic,” Louann said, and turned a steely gaze onto Marilyn as she walked into the room.
Marilyn stopped in her tracks with a frown. She’d been caught napping for the second time in minutes – first the vampire and now her mother. She really needed to get rid of her baby-brain that was apparently also a midlife thing and concentrate. “Was that aimed at me?”
“Why would you think that, dear?” Louann asked, but her tone was sickly sweet, and Marilyn knew it well.
Marilyn chose to ignore it. “Speaking of magic…”
“Which we were,” Louann said, just to make her lose her chain of thought once more.
“Yes,” Marilyn said with every drop of patience that she could muster. “We have a problem.”
“The vampire – we know – he’s been out there since early this morning,” Louann said, and there was no sweetness in her tone that time.
“Really?” Marilyn asked and looked out the window. Neal was staring back at her, and the un-dead rat even went so far as to wave. “Ugh!” she groaned and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and down onto Lottie.
“Well, don’t sound too happy about it,” Lottie offered her a wink and a grin.
Marilyn frowned. Was everybody trying to get her dating, or worse, showing off her bits and pieces to a man – that wasn’t going to happen. She still had her pride. Gravity was taking its toll, and her body didn’t look like her body anymore. It was disconcerting.
Unfortunately, gravity wasn’t something you could suck in or put Lycra on, but that wasn’t her biggest problem right now, just one of many she needed to deal with. “I’m not happy,” Marilyn said, distracted.
“Then get a man,” Lottie said.
Marilyn sighed. “Oh, Lottie, do you really think a man is the answer to everything?”
“No, but it certainly takes your mind off your problems,” Lottie replied.
“And gives you all new ones,” Marilyn said.
Louann piped up. “If you’re looking for a spell to make the vampire burst into flames…”
“Mother!” Marilyn said, using her mummy voice.
“Oh, don’t use that tone with me,” Louann said. “I invented it.”
Marilyn opened her mouth and closed it again. It was official – she was becoming her mother. Wasn’t that just the cherry on the cake?
Marilyn offered her mother a pointed look, but Louann just snorted a chuckle. “I invented that look too,” she said.
Marilyn would have headbutted the nearest wall, but she didn’t have time. The thing with ghosts was the longer they lingered, the more of a foothold they got in this world, and that meant it was harder to get rid of them. In that respect, they were a bit like a stain.
“We have a lingerer!” She announced before her mother got set in her ways for the day of berating and annoying the hell out of her.
“Yuck!” Lottie bit out and shivered. “I hate Lurkers.”
“Ghost?” Sandy asked, remembering what Lottie had said about them.
“You betcha,” Marilyn said and hooked a thumb over her shoulder.
“Do we know who it is?” Louann asked, hoping it wasn’t one of her late husbands’ because that would just be awkward.
“Marsh Weathers,” Marilyn said, throwing up her hands.
“The golfing guy?” Lottie screwed up her face. “Couldn’t you have drawn a more fun lurker if you had to have one?”
“He wasn’t my first choice; I’d have preferred a dog, but puppies are happy on the other side,” Marilyn offered back with a big dollop of sarcasm.
“Weren’t you looking for our help?” Louann asked, raising her eyebrows once more, but this time in a warning.
Marilyn opened her mouth and stuck out her lower jaw as she considered her mother’s words. “That would be why I’m here, yes,” she said, knowing there was going to be a punch line.
“Then show a little respect to your elders,” Louann scolded her. “And get rid of that vampire-gnome perched on the garden wall.”
“Love too,” Marilyn said. “Do we have a spell in mind for getting rid of ghosts?”
“Can I help?” Sandy asked.
“Of course.” Lottie nodded. “I wonder how he got in?”
“Probably crept in on the back of a spell,” Louann said. “We have been pretty active in the last few days…”
“And we all contributed to that spell on the full moon,” Lottie added, letting her words trail away and looking at Louann. Both women pulled back at the same time.
“What?” Marilyn asked, curious as to what they thought they knew, and she did hate to be the last to know.
“Six witches,” Louann said and sighed.
“And?” Marilyn asked, but they ignored her.
Lottie grimaced. “We didn’t think of that when we were casting…”
“Of what?” Marilyn asked; frustrated that she was the last to know what was going on.
Sandy looked as if she was watching a tennis match, her head going from side to side as she sat between the elders, and Marilyn was more than aware how that felt – when the elders got going; there was usually little to stop them until they were ready to share.
“Oh dear,” Louann said, and Marilyn groaned inwardly, but she didn’t ask again.
“A coven!” Lottie announced, looking at Marilyn and finally answering the question that she’d given up asking.
CHAPTER FOUR
~
Marilyn scowled. “We don’t have a coven,” she snorted a chuckle, that had been a big letdown, she’d expected more from the elders. Then it hit her, and she slapped her hands over her mouth and gasped. “Oh, my Goddess, we’ve formed a coven!”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Sandy asked.
“Yes,” Marilyn snapped, and scowled at her own impatience with the young witch; it was akin to kicking a puppy who didn’t know that pooping in your shoe was a bad thing. “Sorry!” she bit out.
Marilyn wasn’t angry at Sandy; the young woman didn’t know a witch’s bum from her elbow - yet. She was mad that not one of four experienced witches had even thought of what happened when six witches practiced the craft together, and what that meant in the grand scheme of things.
Sandy smiled and shrugged. “That’s okay, but why is a coven bad? I thought all witches had covens.”
Lottie reached out and covered Sandy’s hand with her own. “Forming a coven or joining one is a big commitment and should never be entered into
lightly,” she informed her.
“Precautions should be taken beyond the normal protection spells,” Louann said and looked at Marilyn as her daughter groaned.
“Which we didn’t do, and it’s how Marsh Weathers, the golf guy, was able to piggyback our spell,” she groaned again.
“Then if that’s how he got in, that’s how we can push him out,” Lottie said. “Do everything in reverse.”
“We’ll need a full moon,” Louann said and heard her daughter squeak.
Marilyn looked agog. “That’s over three weeks away. I do not want Marsh psycho Weathers in my house for three hours, let alone three weeks.”
“Too bad,” Louann said shrugging. “You should have been more careful.”
“I should have been more careful?” Marilyn bit out in disbelief.
“Yes,” Louann smirked.
“I’m not the elder,” Marilyn tossed back.
“Give it a few more years and a few more scowl lines, and you will be,” Louann replied.
Marilyn could have said so much, but she bit her tongue for the sake of expediency and turned to Lottie instead. “Can you please try to think of another way?”
“I can try, and I’ll consult my books,” Lottie offered with a smile of sympathy to try to reassure her. She certainly wouldn’t want to live with a ghost, friendly or otherwise, and she doubted Mr Weathers was friendly, considering he’d already tried to kill Claudia twice.
“At least someone is being helpful,” Marilyn tossed back at her mother. One good jibe deserved another, she thought. Lottie chuckled behind her hand as Louann tossed her daughter a glare.
“Don’t you have guests?” Louann asked, and Marilyn snapped to attention when the broom fell over at the front door. “Company is coming.” Louann smirked.
“That’s your broom,” Marilyn said, and she wouldn’t have put it past her mother to have done that on purpose.
“And you own the property.” Her mother tossed back a smirk.
Marilyn didn’t have an answer for that. She only hoped her mother had used magic to make the broom fall; she didn’t need any more unexpected visitors. “I’ll just go see who that is then,” she said and beat a hasty retreat before her sharp tongue got the better of her brain.